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Little Chair Salvage

**UPDATE: After recieving immense pressure from Bark, the BLM has dropped one of the three proposed units from this project. The unit they dropped would have included logging in recently burned habitat, previously saved from the Airstrip Timber Sale

Background 03/02/15

The Little Chair Salvage proposes to log 35-50 acres of BLM land burned by the 36 Pit Fire. In addition to constructing up to 0.10 miles of new roads, other activities include decommissioning or closing roads, improving or replacing culverts, and reforestation.

The use of a Categorical Exclusion here to include salvage timber sales is controversial due to the nature of this project. Categorical Exclusions should be used for their original intended purpose of conducting “non-controversial” activities such as repairing and replacing infrastructure, not for circumventing public input and avoiding environmental analysis for projects such as salvage logging.

One unit also appears to be within the project area for the 2009 Airstrip Timber Sale proposal. It is difficult to tell on the map provided, but in Airstrip we expressed deep concern about two legacy snags and at least three legacy trees that may be within the newly proposed unit.

The BLM must consider the cumulative impacts of adding this CE project to the list of existing and reasonably foreseen logging impacts in this part of the Clackamas which include ongoing USFS, BLM and private land logging projects.